The Wake Up Call's Blog

Baby Learns To Walk At 6 Months

by The Wake Up Call,posted Feb 16 2010 7:33AM

The six-month-old baby who learnt to walk before he could crawl
By Andrew Levy (www.dailymail.co.uk)
When there's a whole world to explore it doesn't pay to spend all day lying about.
Which might explain why little Xavier King decided that, at just six months old, it was time to get up and get on the move.
His parents Mary and David were astonished when their son took his first steps so soon - in half the time it takes most babies.
A month on and Xavier comfortably covers 6ft on his own. And he is improving every day.
'It was such a shock. We couldn't believe it,' said Mary, 30, a first-time mother from Cambridge.
'I never thought for one moment he would be walking at six months. Most children don't until they are a year old.'
Xavier was born in July last year weighing a healthy 9lb 1oz. His parents suspected he would be a fast learner when he was sitting up on his own at only three months.
But his rush to his feet still came as a surprise, especially as Xavier hadn't even begun to crawl.
'It was just amazing when he got up and started putting one leg in front of the other,' said Mary.
'The only problem now is that I can't leave him alone so have had to buy a play pen so he doesn't get into any mischief.'
Mary believes a bouncing chair in which she used to sit her son might have helped build up the muscles in his legs, adding: 'It's funny how he learned to walk before he learned to crawl. I always thought it would be the other way around.'
Neither Mary nor her husband, a 27-year-old shopping centre manager, learned to walk before they were a year old, she said.
Babies tend to start pulling themselves up to their feet at about nine months and are standing solo by 11 or 12 months.
Most are proficient walkers by 18 months, although some can take much longer.
Child development expert Dr Martin Ward Platt said: 'To be quite so precocious with your walking is extremely uncommon.
'For his parents, it simply brings forward the moment you need eyes in the back of your head.'